Gregory Conquers Julius Caesar
1582 Flanders adopts the Gregorian calendar, skipping 11 days making the next day Jan 1, 1583
- 1598 Battle of Curalaba: the Mapuche people led by Pelentaru revolt and inflict a major defeat on Spanish troops in southern Chile
The Mayflower
1620 Mayflower Pilgrims come ashore in Plymouth Bay, traditionally thought to be at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts [OS: Dec 11] [some sources disagree, and OS/NS adds to confusion, could be +/- several days]
Event of Interest
1650 Johan de Witt installed as Dutch Pensionary of Dordrecht
- 1788 Hue Tay Son becomes emperor Quang Trung of Vietnam
- 1829 1st stone arch railroad bridge in US dedicated, Baltimore
- 1835 HMS Beagle sails into Bay of Islands, New Zealand
- 1844 The Rochdale Pioneers commence business at their cooperative in Rochdale, England, starting the Cooperative movement.
- 1849 1st US skating club formed (Philadelphia)
Victory in Battle
1864 General Sherman conquers Savannah, Georgia
- 1866 Fetterman Massacre: Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians kill all 81 US Army soldiers, the worst military disaster suffered by the U.S. Army on the Great Plains at the time
Event of Interest
1872 Phileas Fogg completes his round the world trip in 80 days, in Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days"
- 1890 Pim Mulier 1st & only trip to "Alvesteddetocht"
Event of Interest
1894 Mackenzie Bowell becomes the 5th Prime Minister of Canada
Event of Interest
1898 Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium
Theater Premiere
1900 Gerhart Hauptmann's play "Michael Kramer" premieres in Berlin
- 1906 British Parliament pass two important pieces of social legislation: The Trades Disputes Bill, legalizing peaceful picketing, and The Workingmen's Compensation Act, broadening employers' liability for accidents
- 1907 Dutch government of De Master falls due to war budget
- 1909 1st junior high school established (Berkeley California)
Theater Premiere
1909 Clyde Fitch's play "The City" premieres in NYC
- 1909 Unitversity of Copenhagen rejects American Explorer Frederick A Cook's claim that he was 1st to North Pole
- 1910 Explosion in coal mine in Hulton England, 344 mine workers dies
- 1912 Denmark, Norway & Sweden declare neutrality in Comende war
- 1913 1st crossword puzzle (with 32 clues) printed in NY World
- 1914 2,800 African miners strike at the Van Rhyn Deep mines in a bid to redress some of their grievances
- 1915 10.17" (25.83 cm) of rainfall, Glenora, Oregon (state record)
Event of Interest
1919 J. Edgar Hoover deports anarchists/feminist Emma Goldman to Russia
- 1921 Supreme Court rules labor injunctions & picketing unconstitutional
- 1923 Nepal changes from British protectorate to independent nation
- 1929 1st group hospital insurance plan offered (Dallas Tx)
- 1933 Dried human blood serum 1st prepared, University of Pennsylvania
- 1933 Newfoundland reverts to being a crown colony of Great Britain
Appointment of Interest
1939 Adolf Hitler names Adolf Eichmann leader of "Referat IV B", responsible for evictions and Jewish immigration
- 1941 German submarine U-567 sinks
- 1942 US Supreme court declares Nevada separation legal
- 1944 Cards' Marty Marion wins NL MVP
- 1946 Earthquake in South Japan, kills 1,086
- 1948 O'Neil Place in the Bronx erroneously renamed O'Neill Place
- 1948 State of Eire (formerly Irish Free State) declares its independence
- 1949 Dutch 1st Chamber accept sovereignty of Indonesia
- 1951 Pioneering telenovela "Sua Vida Me Pertence" premieres in Brazil
- 1952 Broadway Tunnel opens in San Francisco
Event of Interest
1956 Martin Luther King Jr. and others sit in the new integrated bus
- 1957 Indonesia proclaims end to state of war
Event of Interest
1958 Charles de Gaulle wins 7 year term as 1st President of the 5th Republic of France
- 1959 10th largest snowfall in NYC history (13.7")
- 1959 Citizens of Deerfield Ill block building of interracial housing
Meeting of Interest
1961 US President John F. Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan meet in Bermuda
Historic Expedition
1968 Apollo 8: 1st manned Moon voyage launched with Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders
Event of Interest
1971 UN Security Council chooses Kurt Waldheim as 4th Secretary-General
- 1972 Soviet Union signs a separate peace with East Germany
- 1973 Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, US & USSR meet in Geneva to discuss the Arab-Israeli conflict
- 1975 1st NY Jet to gain 1,000 yards rushing (John Riggins)
- 1975 Madagascar adopts constitution
- 1976 20th Islander shut-out opponent-Billy Smith 3-0 vs Bruins
- 1976 Patricia R Harris named secretary of HUD
- 1976 UN General Assembly passes a resolution declaring 1979-Year of Child
- 1976 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Murder of Interest
1978 Police in Des Plaines, Illinois, arrest John Wayne Gacy for murder
- 1979 New constitution for Zimbabwe agreed
- 1979 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1984 Islander Kelly Hrudy's 1st shut-out win-Whalers 1-0
- 1984 USSR launches Vega 2 for fly-by of Halley's Come
- 1985 ARCO Anchorage runs aground near Port Angeles, WA
- 1987 3 white NY teens convicted of manslaughter in death of a black man
- 1987 Soyuz TM-4 launches 3 cosmonauts - Vladimir Titov, Musa Manarov, and Anatoli Levchenko - to space station Mir. Titov and Manarov stay in space for just under 366 days, setting a new spaceflight record
- 1988 Drexel agrees guilt to security felonies, pays a $650 million fine
Lockerbie Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
1988 Lockerbie disaster: A terrorist bomb destroys Pan Am Flight 103 mid-air, over Scotland; kills all 259 passengers and crew on board, and 11 people on the ground [1]
- 1988 Vladimir Titov & Musa Manarov return to earth (a year) with Chretien
- 1989 New Zealand is the first country to set a formal inflation target (0-2%) for how much prices should rise each year. Similar targets are subsequently adopted by most developed countries.
- 1989 VP Quayle sends out 30,000 Xmas cards with word beacon spelled beakon
- 1990 Steve & Mark Waugh complete 464* partnership for NSW v WA
- 1991 95 share in Madrid Spain $1.3 billion lottery (#47996)
- 1991 El Sayid Nosair acquitted of killing Meir Kahane
- 1991 Soviet Union formally dissolves as 11 of 12 republics sign treaty forming Commonwealth of Independent States
- 1992 Dutch DC-10 in fire at landing on Faro Portugal, 56 die
- 1994 Bomb goes off on #4 train on Fulton Street NYC
- 1995 Martina Ertl of Germany wins her 3rd giant slalom world cup
- 1995 The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.
- 1996 Pakistan all out 67 to lose to Tasmania by an inning
- 1999 The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives that ETA intended to use to blow up Torre Picasso in Madrid.
- 2006 Puzzle Play aired to network Ten, replacing In the Box
- 2007 The Schengen Agreement area increases to include 9 European Union member states; Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia on land and sea borders.
- 2012 39 people are killed in violent clashes in Kenya
- 2012 The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar reaches the date 13.0.0.0.0
Event of Interest
2016 Carl Icahn is announced as Special Advisor to the President on Regulatory Reform, under President Donald Trump
- 2017 UN General Assembly votes 128 to 9 to denounce US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital
- 2020 Governor of California Gavin Newson says there are now no intensive care beds left in Southern California or the San Joaquin Valley
- 2020 United States attorney general announces charges against Libyan Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, accusing him of involvement in constructing the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on the 32nd anniversary of the disaster
- 2020 US begins vaccinating for COVID-19 using the Moderna vaccine
COVID-19 Pandemic
2020 US President-elect Joe Biden receives the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine live on TV
- 2021 Major breakthrough in development of nuclear fission energy when experiment produces 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds at JET Laboratory, UK (reported Feb 2022) [1]
- 2022 Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Washington, DC, meets with US President Joe Biden at the White House, and addresses Congress [1]